Share Your Story

By reading about other people, their challenges and their inner worlds, we start to grow ourselves - Through reading someone else's story we get to live their life, at least a little bit - We face their problems with them, experience their joys and disappointment, and feel what they are feeling. We get to see the world through their their eyes. - We get to see life through their perspective.

My story isn’t like a lot of other rappers. I didn’t grow up in the hood and join a gang and drop out of high school. I’ve never done drugs or partied until I blacked out. I’m a rapper because one day I found the words to express myself and I never looked back …

"My self-harming was perhaps the addiction I struggled with most, because as I let go of my other disorders, I craved a sense of control. Control of the body has always been my coping mechanism. I can control what I do to myself even if I can’t control what others do to me..."-Suzie Larson

"She used to doll me up as a girl when I was a child. Whatever her actions and reasons were at the time, it did not matter because what she did had messed up my identity of a boy and misled my sexual preferences. I struggled with my sexual identity and had problems accepting it even now as a gay man and I get depressed over it." - Sufyan Adli Supiani

"In a perfect society, we would all come out unscathed. The trials and tribulations we face would roll off our backs like a spring rain and nothing would deter us from our potential. Sadly, this is not the case and often times we are dealt a hand that has nothing to do with our decisions but the decisions of those who have gone before us. I faced such a situation at a young age and as I grew I found myself standing on the cusp of a decision. Do I allow this revelation to continue to feast on my future, or do I dig into it, removing it from my life forever? "- M. J. Deskovic

"I am still not the mother they spent their last 16 years with. My memory is non-existent, I forget everything constantly. My arms are always have a painful tingling through to my finger tips. I feel extremely anxious now, overwhelmed by anxiety. I drive myself crazy. With my twin’s hometown of Huxley we are slowly attempting to get back to life" - Megan Johnson

"I roll to my side in search of my liquor, a sense of despair looms; my bottle looks empty. I grab the hefty 60 ounce bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin and pray that there may be just enough left for one shot. Thank God there is. I drain every last drop of the alcohol in my mouth savouring the burn on my tongue and the brief feelings of relief that arise. This was my daily scenario as I approached the end of my drinking career" - Ishaq Malik

What follows is two unique stories about similar injuries. Paul and Jennifer both survived a fall of a building, sustaining significant brain injuries. This is their stories of handling judgement and accepting their new life situations.

"On a few occasions I admitted that I had a Brain Injury years ago and this was the possible reason for my mistakes. I was fired."

"I woke to being a total stranger to myself. My family and lover were strangers to me, which must have broken their hearts. I was a grown woman, yet I thought I was a child."

"You learn to dress and act and talk a certain way because that's what they want of you. But still I pushed back, defiantly trying to hang on to what I liked, the parts that made me ME" - Invisigoth Killswitch

My grandmother used to say to me, “Don’t ever worry about the things you’re already worried about, it’s the things you never thought possible that get you.”I could never fault her with this quote, I still can’t ... - Anonymous

"Being gay, in my bold opinion, is a grueling task. It consumes said person’s whole identity and from the moment they came out of the ‘closet’, they will forever be surrounded by that identity and that identity alone ..." Rinat Nur

"On May 8, 2015, I was released from my fourth and final mental hospital. I had spent over half a year in them during the age of 14 due to self-harm and a suicide attempt. After two years of being put on God knows how many high dosage medications, it felt like my doctors and I had finally cracked the code" - Sam Wilson

"I was two years old when my mother first abandoned me on my father’s doorstep, and five years old when I began to notice my mother’s abusive behavior. She would ignore me for weeks, pushing me away from her when I tried to hug her. The abuse seemed to grow stronger as I grew older. She would steal drugs from the nursing home she worked at and combine them with Captain Morgan and Diet Coke." - Sabrina Copeman

"Back then, I was paralysed by anxiety and depression, staying awake all night unable to sleep the pain was unbearable. I kept on going, if only for the sake of what my family would go through if I were gone.

Aching from the inside out, even my skin hurt. I talked myself through each step to get through the day: one foot out of bed, open the blinds, open the door, walk to the kitchen, left foot, right foot. I lied to myself, promising if I could get through the day I could fall apart at night. Instead I found distractions to stay awake to the point of exhaustion until eventually I’d pass out, waking again the next day to repeat ... " - Lana Burns

"The knocking didn't let up after that and I said, 'I'm off to sleep now'. The voice at the door suddenly said, 'Let me in'.

I sat up slowly and I could feel the adrenaline starting to kick in and the hairs on the back of my neck were raised. Just to clarify the next move I should make after that, I asked him the simple question, 'Why?'

"At the age of 17 I suffered an episode of severe psychotic depression. At that age I had no idea what it meant to have a mental health problem; no one had ever told me about mental illnesses and I didn't have the words or knowledge to make sense of what was happening to me ... " - Jasmine Amber

"For these people, there is no help coming. No private insurance, no public health. There is no security, no assistance, and no perspectives. Hope lies within the imaginary, the almighty, the all loving, beyond substance ... "

" People really discover things about themselves through training martial arts. Although I found a new sense of self-belief beginning martial arts, I have also found a great deal of self-doubt along the way, I am not fighter, and I often do not know who I am and where I fit ... " - Jade Kerr

By reading someone else's story we get to live their life, at least a little bit. We face their problems with them, experience their joys and disappointments, and feel what they are feeling. We get to see the world through their eyes and see life from their perspective.

The Share Your Story Project aims to provide a platform that will help to reduce the stigma of mental illness, disability, physical injury, trauma, sexuality and alternative lifestyles. Only through open and honest communication can we ever hope to become a more understanding and inclusive as a society.

If you would like to contribute your story, please let me know a little more about it by completing the form below. I am afraid that I cant guarantee that all stories will be published, but they will all be explored.

I will contact you via email to discuss the specific details of your submission.

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Please provide a short overview of your story and include any related website or social media links *